The police have foiled a multi-million naira fraudulent transactions by a gang of criminals who work with local and international bank insiders to steal money from bank customers.
The Commissioner of Police in Lagos, Hakeem Odumosu, said on Tuesday, according to Premium Times, that the swift arrest of the seven-man criminal gang by men of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), aborted fraudulent transactions of N3 million, N25 million and $220,000 which was almost completed.
“The arrest by the decoy team of RRS a few days ago, was based on the intelligence it received on the activities of a fraud syndicate based in Lagos and led by one Osita Nwafor, alias Ossy,” CP Odumosu said.
“Nwafor, 45 years old, was picked up in the gang’s hideout by the Decoy Team after a technical analysis of the details of the gang and its activities. His arrest facilitated the arrest of six other members of the gang in different parts of the metropolis.”
Names of the suspects arrested, include Nwogu Joseph Chika, 36; Anthony Odama, 43; Ikechukwu Nkem, 32; James Okonkwo, 51; Adedio Paulinus, 29; and Ogundepo Olufemi, 51.
Explaining how the gang operates, the police boss said that the fraudsters scout for obituaries of well to do members of the public, use bank insiders to determine the deceased account balance, clone their SIM cards for online transfer.
While one of the bank insiders was arrested in Lagos, another bank insider in Benin, fled after suspecting that the syndicate had been caught.
According to Nwafor: “although I brought the team together, each and every member of the group has his own specialization in the group. We sourced for cases and each and every member of the gang has his own role on each of the cases.
“Once I have done my own part of the deal (sourcing for SIMs and accounts numbers through the group perpetrates its fraud), I push it to whoever among the members has to play the next role and that is how we treat our cases. Apart from this, each member of the gang also has his own splinter group. Whenever they have personal jobs, they also handle on their own.”
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